Cathy O'Neill interviewed Fawn Nguyen on the math Common Core standards. Fawn is an optimist. I fear that the goodness she describes in the standards may be overpowered by the harm done with the endless testing, money for testing (instead of for teaching and learning), evaluations of schools and teachers determined by testing, etc.

I am dedicating Playing With Math: Stories from Math Circles, Homeschoolers, and Passionate Teachers to Seymour Papert. You can get some nuggets of his by following The Daily Papert. From Wednesday: “You learn in the deepest way when something happens that makes you fall in love with a particular piece of knowledge. “

Are you required to have the standard you are teaching on the board? Mr. K describes why that sucks. Spoilers, anyone? And then Brooke Powers describes how helpful it is to share your bigger goals at the beginning of a unit. (I don't think my way of doing that would satisfy the folks hovering over high school teachers. Thank goodness I teach college.)

About Me

Math Mama is Sue VanHattum, a community college math teacher interested in all levels of math learning, and the mama of a young son. I entered the blogging world as I began work on an anthology about learning math. Contact me at mathanthologyeditor on gmail etc.